Bad Ideas
by Denian
Summary: This is my bad/lost/lonely ideas file / plot bunny cage. Catch them if you want. Any and all warnings may apply, although it's not my goal. Contains crossovers. Rating for safety.
1. Chapter 1

**Bad Ideas**

* * *

**Disclaimer and Introduction**

_First, to get it out of the way, the disclaimer: I don't own anything marketable, and as I don't make any money from this, I encourage everybody to try and claim all the money I make with this. This is true for all the chapters – If you need a reason for the lack of repeated disclaimers in further chapters, see my forum ("Terra Arcana", to be found somewhere on this site... if the admins actually included a less complicated way of finding those than following a link in my own profile...)._

_This does not mean my break from Terra Arcana is over. Heart of the Eclipse requires constructive creativity, which I currently lack. For reasons and further explanations, see my forum ("Terra Arcana", to be found... oh, just read the previous paragraph). For even further explanations PM me – I don't bite. Regularly._

_This is my "wild plot bunny" cage. No two chapters in here belong together, and I hereby give permission (where I'm permitted to do so) to copy, paste, modify, extend, laugh at, wipe your hinquarters with, or otherwise use these stories. For constructive (and publicly mentionable) uses, I would be honoured if you were to mention me, though._

_This is also my "bad ideas" file. I come up with these when I'm either bored or, as is currently the case, overworked. I consciusly recognize these story snippets as oneshots or not concludeable within reasonable amounts of time – whether or not you try anyways is your own decision._

_Some of these, like the first, will be various crossovers, but the main theme will always be HP, so it's labelled that way._

_No further comments – PM me if you need reasons for that, too._

* * *

**... And in the darkness bind them**

_'Incompetence can be a blessing'_, Harry thought, _'if it's somebody else being incompetent. Thank you, Wormtail, for being utterly brainless.'_

Harry's thoughts were caused by the fact that, while cutting Harry's arm, Wormtail had actually cut the rope binding the boy to the gravestone, too – enough for Harry to quickly free himself and tackle Wormtail to the ground before he could reach the cauldron.

_'Now'_, Harrys thoughts continued after he had wrestled the dagger with his blood from the rat-faced man's hand and punched the ex-marauder's lights out, _'how do I ruin this? Because, really, I obviously have to ruin it, otherwise Voldemort might just gain a body...'_

The latter was rather obvious. After all, the previous lines of the ritual had already said that much. "Renew your son" and "revive your master" weren't really subtle hints at all. The next line would probably be another synonym, tailored to his role, and probably start with "re-" once more. Something like "resurrect" maybe.

Point one: Break the alliteration. That was easy – he really couldn't think of anything good beginning with "re-" when it came to Voldemort. "Restrict", maybe, but that was rather harmless – a good start, though.

What he really wanted was to prevent any further attempts to revive Voldemort. How to do that, though? Well, it certainly wouldn't help if he once again managed to escape in his "shadow and vapour" form. Harry would have to catch him somehow... imprison him... _bind_ him.

Point two: Use a lie. Up to now, Wormtail used at least half truths.

_'At least, I really hope that he didn't actually want to cut off his hand for this... Oh, a snake. A conveniently familiar snake... what did Voldy call her? Nagini?'_

He absentmindedly cleaned the knife by wiping it on his shirt. _'What I wouldn't give to know a good cleaning spell right now...'_

He struck and caught the snake by the head. And suddenly, he grinned. _'Perfect.'_

"Lifeblood of the familiar, willingly given – you shall bind your owner!"

With these words, Harry cut off Nagini's head above the cauldron... and, for good measure, just dropped her in completely.

This was where it got tricky. There were subtle signs for this – the potion bubbling ominously, for example, or Voldemort's high pitched laughter echoing about the graveyard.

"Bind me, Potter? To _what_, exactly, are you trying to bind me? I cannot be _bound_, least of all by some boy who doesn't even know what he's doing!"

Harry rolled his eyes. Why did the villain always have to give away the information necessary to defeat them? It was like they didn't even _try_ to succeed. Still, Voldemort was right – he had no idea what to bind the dark bastard to.

He fingered the chain around his neck, thinking hard about things to bind dark spirits to. Somehow, he doubted that binding a dark spirit to a dagger was a good idea, so that was out. The rope would probably dissolve, and he needed the unconscious rat-man (he punched him again, just to make sure) alive.

His fingers encountered the two rings on the chain, and Harry smiled. Those were his parents' wedding rings, given to him by Lupin after his third year. Apparently, the werewolf had kept them as reminders of his best friends.

Rings...

He knew what to do.

With a sad smile, Harry took his father's ring from the fine gold chain – which had also once belonged to his mother. _Anything_ from his mother was _far_ too precious to be used for something as trivial as binding a dark lord, though, so one of the few reminders Harry had of his father would have to do.

"You know, Tom, I think words and their associations might just have as much power as precise rituals. At this point, I'm certainly willing to try. Goodbye, Tom."

He took a deep breath.

"_Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,  
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul._"

He dropped the ring into the cauldron. With a high-pitched scream, the potion in the cauldron seemed to boil away in the span of five seconds, leaving behind a cauldron containing a single golden ring.

A golden ring with fading, glowing red lines along its surface.

"Wow... it actually worked. I'll have to thank Hermione for letting me read those books..."

* * *

When Harry arrived at Hogwarts (after carefully arranging Cedric's dead and Wormtail's living, but unconscious, bodies so he could take both with him by portkey), several teachers, ministry employees and Harry's friends hurried to surround him, asking him about what had happened. Harry had to wait for Dumbledore to silence everybody before he could answer, though.

"First, this man is Peter Pettigrew – betrayer of my parents, one of the people responsible for today's events and the one who murdered Cedric. I'm willing to repeat this under an oath and the influence of veritaserum, by the way."

There were shocked gasps all throughout the crowd, which was still growing.

"Second, he was trying to resurrect Voldemort – failed though." This time, the crowd's response mostly consisted of relieved sighs.

"Third... Hermione, where is Mount Doom?"

Now, that had the whole crowd confused... for ten seconds. Then, it was the whole crowd minus Hermione, who let out a horrified gasp.

"Harry, tell me you _didn't_."

Harry just grinned at her and threw a simple golden ring at the headmaster, who caught it.

"Ash nazg. The answer can be found in books."

Then, he turned and walked towards the castle, Hermione hurrying to catch up with him. Harry was smiling – for once, _he_ had spoken in riddles to _Dumbledore_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Bad Ideas**

**Additional Disclaimer**

_I also don't own Tetris or the song most famous for being the default Tetris background melody, "Music A": Korobeiniki._

* * *

**The Fate of a Flute**

Harry and Hermione Potter were visiting their old friend Rubeus Hagrid for tea. Ron was there, too, although his wife didn't accompany him; Katie had argued that she'd never known Hagrid as well as "the famous trio" (her words) did.

Most people who knew them were still amazed that Katie Bell, the cute chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team (and later Puddlemere United, which, amusingly enough, became a reunion of Harry's first team under the leadership of Oliver Wood, just without Harry), had fallen for someone like Ronald Weasley at all. Her usual answer baffled most people:

"Well, he's not unattractive, is he? I'm a simple girl with few ambitions beside Quidditch, and I don't need some famous revolutionary by my side. I'm happy to come home from the pitch and have a simple life with my attractive, attentive and funny husband, and Ron can be all of that if he doesn't feel like he's out of his league. He's easy to love, and I'm happy to do so."

In contrast, the marriage of Harry and Hermione was always met with the same reaction:

"I knew it!"

None of this was new or especially funny, though, so it wasn't the topic of this visit. There wasn't a topic at all, really, until Hagrid suddenly remembered a question he had wanted to ask for a long time already.

"Say, Harry, whatever happened to that flute I gave you for christmas in your first year?"

Instead of answering, Harry took a few long sips of his tea and started muttering. None of his friends really understood what he was saying, but Hermione thought she heard the word "classified".

"Classified, Harry? How can something like this be classified? I mean, it's just a flute!"

Harry fixed the other three with a serious look for a few seconds each.

"It was bad enough that the whole school had to be obliviated, so I rather agree with Dumbledore's decision to classify this information. There are evils beyond Voldemort, darker, more powerful and far more deadly."

This, of course, peaked everybody's curiousity. Harry sighed when he saw their expressions.

"Damn it, ok. Hermione, please repeat Dumbledore's words regarding the school song – the ones he said after the welcoming feast of our first year. Just for those of us with less perfect memories."

"Well, he said something like 'Ah, music! A magic beyond all we do here!'."

"Yes, I believe those were his exact words. Those were also the words I remembered when I found the flute in my trunk after first year. So, well, it made me think. Something like 'well, if music is more powerful than any magic we learn at Hogwarts, this must be more powerful than any wand'. Do any of you know why there was never an official melody for the school song – and why most wizarding music is either completely boring or absolutely horrible?"

All three shook their heads, slightly confused.

"There is a word that is part of the German language: 'Ohrwurm'. It describes a catchy melody which you can't get out of your head, and especially a song which you hear once and simply can't forget. It's almost like a compulsion: Whenever you're bored, you just can't stop thinking of such a song, and most people actually start at least humming along to the melody. Wizarding music is as it is specifically to prevent this. I didn't know that."

His friends still looked puzzled. Hermione had nodded to signal that she agreed with the explanation, but she didn't know where Harry was going with this.

"There was one tune which, in the years before that summer, had spread among the muggle community. The song was called 'Korobeiniki', or, as most muggleborn and halfblood children would know it, the Tetris theme song. And that's exactly the problem: half the school already knew it and could associate it with the game."

Hermione's head had already fallen, forehead first, onto Hagrid's oversized table. It was her who was mumbling incoherently to herself, now, but Harry still continued his explanation.

"It was the first – and only – song I learned to play on that flute. A week into our second year, the whole school was humming and wistling the melody, and with half of them thinking of the game... Well, it was the biggest case of synchronized accidental magic ever recorded when it started raining strange shapes constructed of four cubes of equal size, each. It didn't stop for three days and resulted in the first mass obliviation in the history of Hogwarts."

Harry calmly took another sip of his tea, his friends were still too shocked to speak.

"My flute was confiscated, and that weekend, we had to sleep in the great hall because the roofs of the whole school had to be checked for damage. Dumbledore secretly awarded five hundred points to Gryffindor, though, 'for the greatest piece of magic ever accomplished at Hogwarts'. Of course, Snape had them removed by the end of the following week."

After a few more moments (which Harry spent sipping his tea, now decidedly amused), Hermione's head rolled to one side so she could look at him with one eye. Her facial expression was difficult to read in that position, but Harry knew she was exasperated – especially when she spoke.

"Only you, Harry. Only you."


End file.
